


Second-Hand Salt

by ella_minnow



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ella_minnow/pseuds/ella_minnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Scotland, Billy dreams of surfing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second-Hand Salt

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [lmno @ livejournal](http://ella-minnow.livejournal.com/31172.html#cutid1) on 14/01/2004. Thank you, as ever, to mcee for a fabulous beta.

In Scotland, Billy dreams of surfing.

It's strange -- Billy almost never dreamed before, almost never remembered his dreams before. Before coming home. Before New Zealand. When he did remember dreaming, the dreams he remembered were vague and nonsensical; postmodern patchworks of running down long hallways that end in parties full of people he doesn't know gathered around a giant talking cat.

That last might belong to Lewis Carroll's little Alice.

It doesn't matter.

He doesn't dream like that anymore.

All he dreams of now is surfing. Every night since he cracked the months-old seal on his house and walked into that tomb-like stillness, he's dreamed of surfing. And he always remembers.

Billy dreams of waves. He dreams of water, cool and blue and sharp with salt, rushing around him, beneath him. He dreams of the sun on his face and on the back of his neck as he sits, straddling his board, waiting for a wave. The surface of the board is cool and wet against the skin at the back of his thighs and the inside of his knees. It's light-years away from the board that props incongruously against the back wall of his living room.

That board is dry and resolutely room temperature, with a penchant for collecting grey dust that Billy has to wipe away once a week. It seems impossible that it's the same board.

Billy dreams of burning muscles in his shoulders from paddling. He dreams of stinging little abrasions on his toes and knees and the inside of his thighs -- all the places where the surface of his board has clung and pulled and rubbed the skin away. He dreams of days at the beach, squinting against the bright New Zealand light, watching for the calm ocean to sprout gentle swells, which get bigger and bigger until they're proper waves ringed with white foam. He dreams of warm sand beneath his toes and running through his fingers as he sits and waits and watches.

He dreams of Dom.

He dreams of Dom smiling, of tiny, glittering particles of sand caught high on his cheek and of flashing white teeth. He dreams of lazy conversation and comfortable silences as they both sit and squint, waiting for waves. He dreams of Dom running ahead of him into the water, splashing into the surf with his board beneath one arm. He dreams of Dom's bark of laughter cracking the air and the brush of Dom's wet fingers against the side of his face and the press of Dom's ocean-cool lips against his own and of the taste of second-hand salt.

He dreams.

In Scotland, Billy dreams of surfing.

And he always remembers.

End.


End file.
